I’ve been wanting to do an author interview for a while now. When Jim Alexander (GoodCopBadCop, the Light) contacted me about his new release, I knew he’d be a great person to interview.
Welcome to the blog, Jim!
You’ve written a number of graphic novels. (For those who don’t know, he’s written Metal Hurlant Chronicles, Batman 80-Page Giant, and Star Trek Manga.) Are you still writing those? How do you think that has influenced how you approach writing a non-graphic novel?
I’m one of the contributors on a Graphic Novel from Marvel called Uncanny Origins: Myths and Magic, due out at the end of the year. I write ‘The Song of Storm’ which is an origin story of sorts of Storm who people may recognise from the X-Men comics and movies. Primarily though I write prose now. I think I have a very visual style. I’m very meticulous about establishing place and time in my novels. Writing comics and prose are quite different, though. Each has its own particular challenges. Comic strips are told in the present tense. Prose is told in the past tense. I have to utilise different parts of my brain to write in each medium. I suppose this might be why some writers find the transition from prose to comics so difficult (and vice versa)!
What made you begin writing fiction?
It’s always been in my blood, but remained latent until I encountered Alan Moore’s work in the eighties (Warrior Magazine, Swamp Thing). For want of a better way of describing it Moore’s writing turned my world upside down. It opened up all these possibilities in my mind.
What motivates you to continue writing?
It’s the universal refrain, but if I didn’t write I’m not sure what else I would do. I mean there is plenty of other stuff to do. I have a young family, full time job, but part of my brain needs to keep writing. It needs that outlet; that type of release. Maybe it’s just laziness. Maybe it just seems like too much effort to find something I could replace it with.
What’s your best advice for aspiring authors?
First get a job. It’s terrific that you have aspirations to be a full-time writer, but the reality is most writers need to have a regular supply of money coming in. You may be fortunate that you can sustain yourself on scrap paper, but most of us need food. I know, you spend so much time working you have no energy or inspiration left to write, but the truth is if you want to write–if you need to write–you’ll find a way to fit it in. Trust me on this.
Also, join a book club. This is the best way to expose you to books, and ideas, and writing styles and structure that might not otherwise be on your radar.
Also, get on twitter. You can get in touch with anyone in the publishing business at least indirectly on twitter.
Who are your current favorite authors?
Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore (unsurprisingly) are my favourite writers. But the list of authors I admire is as long as the Clyde Tunnel. Iain Banks, Kurt Vonnegut, Warren Ellis, Ernest Hemingway, Mikhail Bulgakov. The last book I read was Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang which blew my socks and slippers off.
What’s your favorite under-appreciated book?
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. It is well regarded in certain circles, but it should be regarded as an absolute classic. I have never experienced so much dread and suspense as I did from reading this book. The insights into mental health are also incredibly prevalent from a novel from the mid-fifties. Don’t be put off by the movie adaptations. In my humble opinion the book has the best last line of any novel ever written (and also those still to be written).
Writers debate whether or not writer’s block exists, but have you ever had READER’s block?
Not so much when I’m writing, but when I’m in the process of refining and finishing a book, going through the drafts, the tos and fros between editor and writer, I can’t really bear to read a novel from someone else. My mind is set at too forensic a level. I just can’t sit back and read and enjoy a good book without part of my brain trying to break it all apart and piece it together again. Luckily it’s a temporary situation, but I’m hopeless during it.
Your latest novel, The Light, is set in a world where people know if they will live or die that particular day. What drew you to explore this idea?
The very first kindling of an idea came from a pitch I did for Vertigo some years ago. The original title was Perishable where carrying out certain actions add 15 minutes to your lifespan. The idea was rejected, but I thought there’s something in there that I really want to work on, but it might take several years to eke out and properly form in my head. There was just something about death and how it informs how we live. Life and death; the paradox at the core of what it is to be human. Once I crystallised it in this way, it was something I couldn’t shake off. I had to get it down on paper. This is how the Light came about.
What was the hardest part of imagining this alternate world?
There are a lot of logistical challenges about the Light and I have to single out the book’s editor Kirsten Murray for helping me work these out. Essentially the Light is a small thing–literally something you can fit in a box–which then ripples out and shapes and informs society as a whole. This is a world where the idea of sending in soldiers who know they are going to die has effectively made war obsolete. How does it affect health service workers? Our idea of family, society, religion, positions of authority; basically fundamentally our own relationships with other human beings?
This is what the Light is all about, and yet it’s about so much more as well. There is existential dread, there is the fear of the unknown, but at the heart of it I think the Light is positive and life-affirming.
To discover how we truly feel about death is the key to make the best of living our life.
This seems like such an interesting and complex subject. What do you hope that readers get out of reading this novel? (Besides entertainment, of course!) What do you want them to think about?
I hope they can each invest in it. They’ll find it immersive. We are all alive; self-aware. We are all mortal. I’d hope they find themselves asking, ‘what would I do in that situation?’ I’m hoping the book will evoke different reactions from each of its readers, which is as much down to what they bring to the book as anything in the book itself.
Your previous novel, GoodCopBadCop, was a twist on the Jekyll-and-Hyde story, though you gave it a distinctly Tartan noir feel with the Glasgow setting. The Light sounds a bit different as it’s set in an alternate world. But are there connections between the two books?
Besides the fact I wrote them both, you mean? :) GoodCopBadCop was confined to Glasgow and its environs, purposefully so. The reader is trapped in Glasgow just as much as they are trapped inside the changeable personas of GoodCopBadCop. the Light is on a world scale. Main characters are based in London. To illuminate the global feel we move from the United States, Russia, South America and Scotland.
GoodCopBadCop is internal, primarily interested in how we relate to the idea of a modern Jekyll and Hyde. the Light is universal, how we relate with society and each other.
In your opinion, what type of person would most enjoy your work?
I think anyone who wants to read fiction which embraces tenets of action/adventure combined with something a little cerebral. If you want to read something different, but not too different, embracing set pieces, dark humour, multi-layered characters then my books are for you.
Thanks for being here, Jim!
Interested in reading the Light?
You can buy it on Amazon! And while you’re there, check out the 4 and 5 star reviews of GoodCopBadCop, or read my blog review here.
Follow Jim online!
Twitter: @JimPlanetjimbot